Big Fish Unlimited Joins The Windows 8 Store

Closely held Big Fish Games is bringing its gaming service to devices running Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system this year. The service, which will come as an app available on the app marketplace known as “Windows Store,” offers a subscription catalog of about 150 games for a monthly fee of $7.99.

These games will be available through a technology called “cloud gaming,” which eschews the typical process of loading software on a computer by streaming the games to a customer’s device instead from servers in a data center that may be hundreds of miles away. The technology is not unlike the way Netflix and Amazon stream movies, though Big Fish’s technology allows customers to interact with the game in split-second speeds.

“Windows 8 and Big Fish Unlimited are a perfect match,” said Will O’Brien, who overseas cloud gaming efforts for Big Fish.

Cloud gaming has become popular recently as companies from OnLive and Gaikai to Nintendo and chipmaker Nvidia have begun experimenting with streaming titles to devices from servers and other devices.

Over the past day here at the Consumer Electronics Show, television maker LG unveiled a technology to stream games in high definition from their smartphones to televisions. And Nvidia unveiled a product called “Project Shield,” a mobile game console which can stream visually taxing titles from a customer’s PC.

Big Fish, based in Seattle, said it has also developed its new app to interact with Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE social gaming network platform. The service will allow them to connect with friends and earn awards for achieving certain objectives within the games.

Big Fish Unlimited launched during the summer, and is available through PC browsers and devices powered by Google’s Android operating software. The company said it plans to expand support for the service to customers running on Macs, as well as other smartphones and TVs.